08 June 2016

3rd South Bristol Rapidplay
- Sat Aug 9th 2014

A
dissappointing 18 players turned up for this event. The organisers
insisted on keeping two sections, so I had to shift two players down
from the Open to the Major to make up the numbers. The beginning of the
tournament was quite eventful. One player, driving down from Hereford,
had an accident on the way, but he ‘Kept Calm and Carried On’, and
arrived in time for round 3. He was fine but his car was rather knocked
about. Another arrived at the venue at 9.30am, but thinking that the
start time was 11am (it was 10), he sat in his car reading his paper. I
didn’t know he was there, so he missed the first round.

In the
Open section (10 players) Patryk Krzyzanowski kept the main prize ‘in
house’ by winning with 5½ out of 6, closely followed by Lewis Martin
(University) with 5. In the Major (8 players), it was a close run thing
to the end. Eventually, the last game to finish was a draw between the
two exiles from the Open, namely Duncan Macarthur of Keynsham and Adrian
Champion of Cabot, and their draw meant that Duncan won with 4½, while
Adrian was one of four players joint second with 4. The other three were
Nick Fuller, who lives in Spain, Dorota Pacion (South Bristol) and
Richard Porter (University). In the final round of the Major section,
Tournament Director announced that there was no legal pairing, so I had
to pair it by hand, and Richard Porter played the same opponent he had
played in the previous round. I must remember not to rely on the
computer program when there are 8 players in a 6 round tournament.